Tusnami update

For those of you following our little drama yesterday you'll know that we were fortunate in New Zealand and Australia. Although the perception is that nothing actually happened here the reality is that we did get it with a very strong tide surge that tested a lot morings and made a good effort at pulling a few boats under. We were very lucky.

Western Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga were not so lucky. Rather than give you numbers I'm going to put it into a context for you. The devasation would be similar to London having 5,250 dead and 60,000 homeless. For those of you on the other side of the pond that would mean 13,650 dead and 156,000 homeless in New York.

For the Samoa's and Tonga they just got hit with with about three nine elevens and a fistfull of Katrinas. They are not having a happy time of it. I've asked my brother, who is an ABC journalist who covered the Papua New Guinea tidal wave in 1998, what would be the best way to give them support and I'll be posting that information once he's woken up. For those that wish you can make a direct donation to the New Zealand Red Cross's Samoan Red Coss Campaign here.

At present New Zealand and Asutralia are giving direct assistance to Western Samoa and Tonga while I'm assuming the massive resources the pacifuic fleet are heading in the direction of American Samoa.